Allentown man pleads guilty to assaulting 1-year-old

An Allentown man could serve up to 10 years in a state prison after pleading guilty Monday in Lehigh County Court to assaulting a 1-year-old child.

Arthur Schlabig, 42, will be sentenced Aug. 29 and remains in the county jail under $125,000 bail. He told Judge Robert L. Steinberg that he was sorry for hurting the little girl.

“I’m doing this voluntarily to take responsibility for the actions that happened, so I can get the treatment I need so that this won’t happen again,” he said.

Schlabig was arrested in February, following an investigation that began Jan. 29 when the baby was rushed to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest for seizures.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Matthew Falk said Schlabig was watching the baby around 8 p.m. at his North Ninth Street home and shook her violently because she was crying.

The baby was staying with Schlabig and his wife because her mother is incarcerated in North Carolina. She was born addicted to heroin and has developmental delays, Falk said.

Schlabig’s wife had left for work shortly before the incident. He called her when the baby’s seizures began and she came home, Falk said.

Doctors found bruises on the baby’s face and legs, as well as broken blood vessels in her eyes and bruising on her brain. Falk said the injuries were consistent with “repeated acceleration and deceleration,” earmarks of abusive head trauma, formerly called shaken baby syndrome.